TTT – Throwback to Favorite Bookish Sites, Groups, and Apps!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl – you find a list of all the blogs participating on her page! This week’s topic was a Throwback Freebie to any topic they’ve previously done that I haven’t participated in. At some point in the last week it was changed to the best books you’ve read this year, but I’ve been busy and didn’t discover that until today, so this is what you get! After browsing the list, I saw “Favorite Bookish Sites, Groups, and Apps” and knew I’d found my topic. I spend a LOT of time online, and there are some sites and apps that take up most of my time. I’m going to move past the obvious ones like Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads, and list some you might not actually know about.

First up is Litsy. Litsy is an app-only social network; it’s described as the love child of Goodreads and Instagram, and that’s pretty appropriate. You post pictures with captions, like Instagram, but you MUST tag a book on your post. It keeps the app book-centered instead of straying to other topics. It’s also one of the most positive online communities I’ve had the pleasure of being part of. It was recently bought by the owners of Library Thing, but hasn’t seemed to change much except behind the scenes coding and server migrations to help it work better. They do have some ideas, but so far they’ve been very good about listening to consumer feedback about what we do and don’t want. Because Litsy is very good as it is! It’s available for both Android and iPhone, though the iPhone version has more features. (That’s something Library Thing is working on correcting.)

RivetedLit, by SimonTeen, is a site I was linked to last month, by the author of Autoboyography. She posted it on Twitter, because her book was free to read on the platform through the end of June. So was Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, so I got to read both. They have a selection of extended excerpts and full YA books available every month, it seems. This month their full book options are The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Museum of Heartbreak, and Alex, Approximately. I plan to read at least that last one.

Smashbomb is one of the sites I cross-post my reviews to. It’s not strictly a bookish site, it’s a review site, but books are one of their biggest categories. You can also review Music, Movies, Apps, Podcasts, Tabletop Games, Tech, TV, and Video Games. Smashbomb is still fairly new, it launched early 2017. They don’t have all possible books in their database, but it’s fairly easy to add them yourself if they’re not there yet. I like seeing what other people have said about the book I’m reviewing, and I just like the way the site is set up.

Book Riot. Oh, Book Riot. I absolutely love Book Riot, for their newsletters (separated out by genre!), bookish news columns, columns about topics like “100 books you must read about <topic>” and giveaways. I won my first one last month! Some examples of recent articles are “10 Middle Grade Books About the Pioneer Era (That Aren’t Little House on the Praire)”, “Motherhood, Meet Dystopian Fiction (I Wish You Had Never Met IRL)”, “150+ Upcoming YA Books For Your July-September 2018 Radar,” “6 Transgender Novels by Trans Writers,” “Police Officers Challenge Books on a South Carolina Summer Reading List.” As you can see, they hit all kinds of topics, and they’re irreverent, fun, and topical. I really, really love Book Riot.

Bookstr is similar to Book Riot, with articles, bookish news, and Giveaways. They also have fun Bookish Quizzes, like “Do You Know These Famous Authors’ First Languages?” and “What Your Book Storage Habits Say About You.” I think the biggest difference is that Book Riot organizes by genre – their headings at the top of the page are Children’s, Comics, Mystery/Thriller, Romance, etc – while Bookstr organizes by type of content. Lists, Galleries, Quizzes, Articles, Videos, Giveaways. Both sites have lots of amazing content, though.

Book of the Month is another one of my favorite bookish sites. It’s a subscription box, and at the beginning of every month they pick six hardcover books for you to pick one of. It’s $15 a month, and you can pick additional books for $10 each. For hardcovers, that’s a steal! You usually get them a few days to a few weeks before their release date, and they’re special Book of the Month editions. I love this box so much. So far I’ve received The Astonishing Color of After, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (which I haven’t read yet!), The Book of Essie, When Katie Met Cassidy, The Kiss Quotient, and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. (The latter being my July book.) If you don’t like any of the books being offered, you can simply skip a month and they won’t charge you. (I skipped May.) If you use my link, you’ll get an extra book free your first month. (And I’ll get an extra book free for referring you!

The Bi Writers Association is one of my favorite organizations – they do the Bisexual Book Awards every year, and I’m always interested in diverse reads! My husband and a lot of my friends are bisexual, so I have an interest in that flavor of the rainbow in particular. Reading through their past winners list made my To-Read list EXPLODE, so, fair warning on that.

A collection of other bookish sites, groups, and apps that I find interesting:

Library Thing I’ve only just started using, so haven’t formed much of an opinion on yet. Goodreads and Instagram, of course. Libby by Overdrive is an app for borrowing ebooks on your phone. I haven’t used it much because I’d prefer to read on my Kindle. I use my library website all the time, but I doubt that would be helpful to you!

I’m always on the lookout for more online bookishness, did I miss anything obvious? What are your favorites?

Welcome to my online scrapbook of (mostly) bookish nonsense. I'm a reader, writer, bookstagrammer, animal lover, sewer, video game and Netflix enthusiast with an aversion to coat-hangers and large tomatoes.